Best budget travel laptop? Acer Aspire 14″ (E14 E5-475) review.

The Acer Aspire E14 E5-475 laptop is part of Acer’s E Series of laptops. Acer describes this range as everyday laptops, and this specific model comes with a 14″ HD screen, 8GB RAM, 128GB of fast SSD storage and weighs just over 2kg.

Please see our video review below or read on for our written article and verdict.

Features

It was difficult to establish what colour this laptop was going to be. Some descriptions described the laptop as grey, and others as red. I was pleasantly surprised that the laptop actually has a dark grey interior, with a copper coloured lid and base which I quite like. The build quality is good considering the price of the laptop. The keyboard has a little flex, but nothing of concern.

Starting along the left-hand side, there’s two USB 3 ports, a full size HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet, a legacy VGA port and the power port.

Around the right-hand side, there’s a combined microphone and headphone port and a standard USB 2 port.

Finally there’s an SD card at the front and an HD webcam at the top of the screen.

There no DVD drive, which is fairly standard for laptops this size and smaller. There also no USB 3.1 Type-C port, which would have been nice, but not expected. The touchpad is a decent size, and the keyboard feels comfortable to type on.

Inside there’s an Intel dual-core i3-6006U 2GHz processor, with integrated graphics and the latest AC wireless LAN together with Bluetooth. The 2800mAh battery is quoted as lasting 8 hours, helped along by the ultra low-powered U-series processor.

An easily removable back panel provides access to both memory and storage. A single 8GB DDR4 module is installed with space for another.

There’s a 128GB M.2 SATA SSD which provides an easy upgrade path as required. This is on the small size, but I’d still prefer this fast SSD, albeit small, than a larger but slower spinning drive.

There’s even space for a 2.5″ hard drive, although you’d need a cable from Acer spares to install it.

Setup

Setup was straightforward, although I opted for the recommended Windows Creators update which took some time, even with a fast broadband connection.

There wasn’t too much junkware to remove but I uninstalled abFiles, abPhoto, Dashline, Sweetlabs App Explorer and a McAfee trial. I also chose to uninstall Firefox and disable OneDrive.

I installed Chrome and set it as the default browser, and checked Windows Defender, Windows 10’s built in anti-virus was up and running.

I like to also configure the laptop’s power management to high and set screen and sleep timeouts higher than the defaults. But this will depend on how the laptop will be used.

Performance

The laptop felt reasonably quick in use, with its 8GB of RAM and fast SSD. Running the free benchmark tool from userbenchmark.com, it achieved decent results and will be fine for general use.

Sound quality was satisfactory, and the highest volume was louder than average. But as ever, I’d recommend some external speakers or headphones for watching films or playing music. I’ve captured the sound using a Rode shotgun mic (US) in the video review above.

The 14″ screen (non-touch) is quite reflective and has just a standard 1366×768 HD resolution at this price-point, but it has decent viewing angles and is bright enough for most conditions.

Conclusions

With its decent specification, slimline design, (quoted) 8 hour battery life and at just over 2kg, this would make a good and reasonably priced laptop for carrying around with you, either for travels, work or study. I would certainly recommend it, if you can find it for a good price.

Pros

Decent build quality

Good specification for the price

8 hour battery life (quoted, not tested)

Fast M.2 SATA SSD

Easy to upgrade both storage and memory

Cons

Only a little lighter than a 15.6″ laptop

128GB SSD is on the small size (but easy to upgrade)

Small amount of flex when typing

No USB 3.1 Type-C

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Sorry I don’t have the laptop anymore to check but it looks like it has an internal battery: http://prourls.co/Yx5y. So you’d need to take off the back cover to replace. But if you’re just trying to do a cold reset – press and hold the power button for at least 30s – this will force a complete shut down.

Gidon’s obsession with technology began at an early age with a BBC B Micro computer. After working for 12 years at British Telecom travelling around the world as a technology researcher he opened a technology retail store in Tavistock in Devon, selling the latest tech and offering IT services to residential and business customers. Read More…

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